Radio communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such radio communication networks support communications for multiple wireless communication devices (sometimes interchangeably referred to as User Equipments (UEs) herein) by sharing the available network resources. One example of such a network is the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) technology standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). UMTS includes a definition for a Radio Access Network (RAN), referred to as UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). The UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). The UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provides higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks. As the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, research and development continue to advance the UMTS technologies not only to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband access, but to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications. For example, third-generation UMTS based on W-CDMA has been deployed in many places of the world. To ensure that this system remains competitive in the future, 3GPP began a project to define the long-term evolution of UMTS cellular technology. The specifications related to this effort are formally known as Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) and Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), but are more commonly referred to by the name Long Term Evolution (LTE). The complete network is called Evolved packet System (EPS) and is illustrated in FIG. 1. The radio access network is generally referred to as the E-UTRAN and the Core Network (CN) is generally referred to as the Evolved Packet Core (EPC). As is known among persons skilled in the art and as is shown in FIG. 1, the E-UTRAN may comprise evolved NodeB's (eNB). Also, the EPC may comprise various CN nodes, such as a Mobility Management Entity (MME), a Home Subscriber Server (HSS), a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN), a Serving Gateway (SGW), a Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN GW, or P-GW), a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF), etc.
As radio communication networks evolve towards broadband networks, various emerging applications (APPs) are competing for radio resources with traditional voice and data applications. The emerging broadband applications may include voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) applications, high-definition television (HDTV), video-on-demand (VOD), streaming audio and video, machine-to-machine (M2M), instant messaging, presence services, etc. As has been realized by the inventors, the introduction of these emerging applications (APPs), such as smartphone APPs, may not be efficiently supported by the radio resources of radio communication networks. In contrast to traditional voice and data applications, the emerging smartphone APPs present different traffic patterns. For example, when using social networking APPs like FACEBOOK, TWITTER, WEIBO, WEIXIN, etc., the users typically like to share almost anything at any time and at any place. Thus, data traffic related to such emerging APPs may have different characteristics as compared with traditional voice and data applications. As is realized by the inventors, data traffic related to these emerging APPs typically, but not necessarily, exhibit a periodical or near periodical traffic pattern. Also, the distribution of small data packets (compared with comparatively larger data packets) may be higher than in traditional voice and data applications. Moreover, the data packet rate may e.g. be higher or lower than in traditional voice and data applications. In view of this trend, the inventors have further realized that the current traffic model of radio communication networks may have to undergo changes as the emerging APPs are introduced, since existing radio communication networks are not always designed for the data traffic patterns of the emerging APPs.